Do Not Sit Upon the Baby!
by The-Cynical-Goddess
Summary: Raven and Starfire have been left alone for girl time. But the storm brings them more than rain. With a toddler on the loose, and the girls on each other's nerves, will they be able to keep it together? And what happens when Raven finds herself attached?
1. Chapter 1

"**Do Not Sit Upon the Baby"**

**Main Characters: Raven and Starfire**

**Genre: Humor**

**Notes: Not Slash**

**Style: Chapters**

**Start Date: April 24, 2010**

**Raven**

It was supposed to be a rainy day like any other. Crime was slow, Beast Boy and Cyborg were about to tear each other apart, and I was, for once, relaxing. Robin, of course, was working obsessively on his maps with Starfire by his side and his arm around her. He was the only one of us that did not feel the air of peace that had settled over the city.

I was grateful for his presence, because he would keep Starfire at bay. It's not that Starfire and I don't get along, because we do. It's just that every time she's bored and no one wants to talk to her or Robin is gone, she suggests girl time. The 'mall of shopping' and the 'painting of the nails' are her personal favorite suggestions.

In my mind, it's a bunch of bull crap. Needless to say, it always leads to a disaster or four, or a fight that gets Robin breathing down my neck. Not fun.

Since he was present, though, I was able to sit with my heavy book open in my lap and just enjoy myself. I was laying on my back relaxing when suddenly I saw something coming at me; directly for my face.

My hand shot up and I 'caught' the controller to one of their stupid video games with my mind, only to snap out of the trance my story had put me in and listen to the eternal bickering

"Dude, you killed me again!" Beast Boy was whining. "That is so unfair!"

"Not my fault I'm better than you," Cyborg replied smugly, the controller in his hands raised above him in a type of victory pose.

"You threw my controller across the room and you call that being better?" Beast Boy replied, raising his hand and smacking the tin man on the chest. "Ouch!" He cried as the metal sound echoed across the room.

To add insult to injury, I naturally threw my controller back at him. "Leave me out of your stupid argument," I snarled, not wanting to do anything but read my book.

"Why don't you play, Raven?" Beast Boy suggested, still rubbing his head where I'd smacked him with the controller. I felt a tiny twinge of guilt, mixed with a moment of fear that I'd actually managed to hurt him.

"I'd rather die," I told him seriously.

"You're no fun!" He whined, and finally all of the noise drew Robin's attention. He and Starfire stood up, practically as one unit, and came over to us. Starfire freed herself from his arm and came over to sit down next to me, and I sensed disaster coming.

"Raven," Robin said, with that leader-in-your-face style that I always hated because it never meant anything good for me, "I am going to take these two out for the day so we can all have our space. Why don't you and Starfire do something together?"

"Friend Raven, we shall have tremendous fun!" Said Starfire, all of her usual bubbling already starting to annoy me. "We shall…" I stopped listening. I knew the list included everything from changing my hair to going shopping to finding some strange alien-sounding food and eating it. Who knew? Maybe she'd added flying to the moon in there since the last time I'd listened to her.

"Have fun, girls," said Robin, leaning down to kiss the still-babbling Starfire on the cheek before he, Beast Boy, and Cyborg exited the room with little to no ceremony and much laughter. I knew they were in for a much better day than I could ever be.

I suddenly realized that Starfire's babbling had abated. Her eyes were huge and expectant, like a child at Christmas, and I knew if I did not find a way to make her happy I would never hear the end of it from Robin.

I also knew that if I did not find a way to avoid spending the entire day with her I was likely to snap and go on a killing spree to rival Jack the Ripper's. She was the water and I was the rock; she wore at me until I started to disappear.

"What do you really want to do?" I asked her finally, in a defeated voice. Apparently my internal struggle, or obvious loathing of the idea of standing up, had escaped her, because she launched into the same list again, leaving me with time to finish and mark my page, not listening to her any more than I had the first time.

"Pick just one thing," I told her. "One thing for us to do, and then we can do something that I'd really like to do as well, okay?"

"That is wonderful!" She was alight with happiness. "I suggest a journey to the mall of shopping as my most favorite pick!"

Outside, thunder clapped, and she shuddered nervously. "But first I must find a coat of rain!" On this, I could agree with her, and so I rose to find a cloak that would be more suitable to the elements, walking up the stairs and taking my time in my closet.

"Hurry, friend Raven!" Starfire's voice floated up the stairs to me, and I sighed and picked out the heaviest of my cloaks, a black number that I only wore on especially stormy days. I had no clue how Starfire intended to travel; one time she'd tried to convince me we should ride horses the whole way into town. So I tried to mentally prepare as best as I could.

Starfire looked ridiculous and I did must best to avoid laughing at her. Her rain coat was an oversized rubber one, complete with matching boots. Both were a hideous shade of pink and covered in an assortment of the ugliest cartoon rabbits I had ever seen. They clashed with her hair and eyes, making her look for all the world like an oversized child.

"I have picked out these myself!" She said happily.

"You look… great… Star…" I told her, realizing how thickly I was laying on the cynicism.

Outside, thunder clapped again. "I am proposing that we take the bus today, friend Raven."

I breathed an internal sigh of relief. That was one thing gone right with this shopping trip. "Great idea," I told her, which caused her to beam again with happiness.

"Let us go!" Grabbing my hand with all of her usual gusto, Starfire opened the door and flung it open. That was the first time when, among the strangely strong storm, I swore I heard a noise like a cry.

I pulled back on Starfire's arm. "Do you hear that?"

"Hear what?" She asked me in obvious confusion.

That was when it rose above the wind and we both stopped to listen. The sound was a cry, perhaps the cry of a child or a toddler. Neither of us could locate it at first, and stood looking around.

"Why is a child out in the storm?" Starfire asked me, and I shrugged, not wanting to shout above the wind as she was doing. I peered out into the rain, looking for the source of the noise. The mall had all but been pushed from our minds.

"Friend Raven…" Starfire said. She pointed off to one side of the stairs leading from the ground floor of our home. There was a basket, well-wrapped and secure, but still being soaked in the storm.

Both of us walked over to the basket together. Neither of us wanted to touch it; stranger presents from our demented adversaries had cropped up before. With the next gust of wind, however, it became apparent that the basket was crying.

"Stand back," I told Starfire, and carefully raised the basket with my hand, using my mind to pull the blanket back.

Staring back at me were two eyes. Startled, I almost dropped the basket, but then brought it to my body and hunched over it without looking at it further. Pity washed from within me; I had to get it inside.

"Starfire, there's a child in the basket," I told her, my voice coming out shaky with disbelief.

"An earth baby is in that basket? Whatever is a baby doing in a basket?" Starfire asked, the tips of her hair soaking wet, looking at me as I wrapped it in my cloak.

"I don't know," I said honestly. "Come on, let's get inside."

The door almost came off its hinges as Starfire struggled behind me to close it. I made a bee-line for the kitchen, where I pulled the basket out from under my cloak. The blanket was so tight in places that I had to reach for scissors to pry it away completely.

In the basket was the most beautiful child I'd ever seen. I am not a child person by any stretch of the imagination, but something about the curly black hair on the child caught my attention. He also had the most startling black eyes I'd ever seen. He was older than I had expected; he was more toddler than baby, and I quickly estimated him at somewhere around two years of age.

"Mama?" He asked. The child had stopped crying and was looking intently around the kitchen, sitting up before we could stop him and beginning to climb out of the basket. It appeared part of the tight binding had been to keep the child in and the rain out.

"Friend Raven, why does this child call you Mama?" Starfire asked.

"He's confused," I said, feeling around in the bottom of the basket for any kind of indication as to where he had come from. My back to him, I did not see him climbing off the counter until Starfire screamed and caught him against her.

The child laughed, unaware that it had been in any danger. At that moment, I pulled out a note. It was splotched in places, but the message was clear:

_Please protect this child from harm. His name is Tyler._

"Tyler?" I asked aloud.

"Mama!" He said, reaching for me. I backed away, leaving him in Starfire's arms.

"I hate babysitting," I said loudly. "Starfire, I'm going to go ask Robin what he thinks I should do. Stay put and keep a hold on Tyler."

"Friend Raven, it would not be wise to sit upon the baby!" Starfire urged me, holding Tyler as he tried to kick away from her. Clearly he wanted down, but I wasn't going to say anything.

In my hand, the phone rang. I sighed.

"What are we going to do?" I asked Starfire.

"We are going to care for the child as if it were our own!"

Mentally I smacked myself in the face. At that exact moment, Tyler reached out and knocked a jar from the counter to the floor, shattering it.

"No, baby! Do not do that or friend Raven will sit upon you!"

I groaned as I heard this. The thunder clapped in time with my mood, and I knew we were in for a long day without the boys. I shoved the phone in my pocket and prayed that it would ring as I began to sweep up the glass pieces while Starfire continued to talk to the baby, who only laughed harder.

My peaceful day was over, but the chaos was just beginning.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two: Lunch?  
**

Raven sat cross-legged on the couch, doing her best to keep an eye on Tyler. She kept hoping that the cell phone, which she'd slipped through her belt, would ring, but it had so far remained silent. She had sent Starfire into the kitchen to find something for the little boy to eat.

"Hungry," Tyler complained again. He grabbed onto Raven's cloak and, laughing, put his head under it. "All gone!" He said proudly, his little voice muffled.

Raven reached for him. "Come on out," she said, trying to fit her fingers around his wriggling waist. The child laughed and fell to the ground, pulling Raven's cloak so that it tightened at the neck. Reaching for it, she let go of Tyler, who crawled away, still trying to drag the cloak with him.

"Want!" He cried, pulling harder. Raven let out an audible gasp, barely able to breathe, and fussed with the clasp, which came undone. Her cloak fell over the child in a wave of blue, and he cried out from under it. "Dark!"

Raven bent down to the floor and tried to pull the cloak off the child. "Tyler, come out of there." She felt odd without her cloak. In the kitchen, she heard a loud crash, but ignored it, more focused on wrestling her garment off the wriggling toddler, who was back to laughing.

"Mine!" He yelled.

"No, Tyler," said Raven, fighting with him, trying not to hurt him. "That's mine!"

"Mine mine MINE!" Tyler yelled, and rolled himself over so that his head was sticking out, wrapped in the blanket as though it were his own cloak. He looked absurd. Raven started to laugh in spite of herself.

Tyler then pointed at her. "Like you!" He said, clearly delighted with his little game.

"That's great," Raven said, picking up the little bundle wrapped in her blue garment, "but I really need that back." She unrolled him from the cloak and set him down on the couch. She picked up the cloak and began to fit it back around her shoulders, but Tyler reached up and grabbed for the gem.

"Pretty!" He said, and pulled. With a ripping sound, the gem that had held Raven's cloak together came undone, and it fell back around her. She looked on with wide eyes, angry, and snatched the gem back from him.

"Stop it!" She told him very seriously. The child looked up at her with tears in its eyes, and Raven knew she had only a split second before it started to cry. Grabbing her now-ruined cloak, she handed it to him.

"Mine?" The child asked.

"Sure. Yours."

"Like you!" Said the baby, and began to wrap himself back in it. He arranged his face in a very serious face and said, "Stop it!" and then laughed at himself.

Raven sighed. _Now the kid thinks I'm grumpy, _she thought to herself.

Starfire chose that moment to come bustling through the door. "Hello, baby Tyler!" She said. In her hands was a bowl and an oversized spoon. The substance in the bowl was barely identifiable, and Raven instantly regretted sending Starfire into the kitchen to attempt to find food for the baby.

"This is a very special mixture of ketchup, mustard, and mint toothpaste!" Starfire told the baby. She pulled an apron that Raven had previously not noticed from over her shoulder and wrapped the child, oversized cloak and all, in it. 'Kiss the Cook' it read across the front.

Raven snorted in spite of herself. The scene before her was clearly not comical by any stretch of the imagination, and yet she was amused. She blamed part of it on sheer hysterical reaction to being alone with an alien who had no clue and a baby who wanted everything in sight.

She checked her phone. Still nothing. She made a silent vow to kill Robin as Starfire pulled the baby into her lap and picked up the serving spoon, heaping globs of it onto the spoon.

"You must eat for strength, Tyler," Starfire told the child. It took both of her hands to lift the spoon to the baby's mouth, and he sat, wrapped up and held tightly. The spoon was almost too big for his mouth but he opened it anyway.

_Poor kid, _Raven found herself thinking. She decided to take the chance to slip away upstairs and find a new cloak.

Laughter floated up the stairs, but Raven thought little of it. She looked at herself in the mirror and saw that her hair was out of place, her eyes starting to be worn by worry. _Look me. A crime-fighter worn out by a kid._

She used the gem to fasten her new cloak. Just as she finished straightening it around her neck she heard Starfire's voice downstairs. "Tyler!"

Raven ran down the stairs in time to find that mealtime had turned into a mess in the living room. While she was gone, the baby had eaten about half of Starfire's disgusting meal- which was an achievement by Raven's standards- before grabbing the spoon and throwing it across the room. Now that he had freed his little arms, he had used them for destruction; the bowl had ended up face-down, splattering both Starfire and the baby in food.

"Bad bad baby! Look what you have done!" Starfire said. All at once, she shook her head. "But that is okay, because you are a good baby, and I like you very much!" She hugged the child.

Raven sighed. "Go get something to clean this up,"

The baby brightened upon seeing her. "Mine!" It said again, grabbing onto her leg.

Raven lifted the disgusting kid, ripped cloak and all, into her arms. "Time for a bath," she told Tyler, sighing.

"Ducky!" He cried, and Raven sighed as Starfire came back with a bottle of bleach and unceremoniously dumped it on the couch.

"It appears that our couch was white at some point!" She told Raven brightly.

Raven put Tyler down and took the bleach off Starfire. "You handle Tyler, I'll clean the couch," she said in a hurry, wondering how to undo bleach damage.

In the other room, Tyler started to laugh, and Starfire ran in to see what was the matter. Raven ran a hand through her hair; her nerves were shot, the day was stretching on, and her phone was still silent at her side.

"I really do hate to baby-sit," she muttered to herself.

"Friend Raven, please come in here!" Starfire screamed over the sound of something crashing. Knocking the bottle of bleach over as she went, Raven ran into the other room.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

Tyler had gotten into the CD collection when he had left the room. The tower that contained a wide variety of genres and titles, all carefully arranged by Beast Boy in alphabetical order, had come down to the floor. Tyler sat among the wreckage playing with one of the cracked discs.

"Shiny!" He said proudly.

"Oh thank goodness that you were not hurt baby!" Starfire said, grabbing and hugging Tyler. He giggled.

"Hi!" He said, and hit her on the shoulder with the sharp end of the disc.

"Ouch! Tyler, we do not hit!"

"Hit!" Cried the child in delight, and hit her in the shoulder a second time.

Raven crossed the room in three strides and grabbed his little wrist. "She said no," she told him.

Tyler screwed up his face in a grumpy expression. "No!" He said, and giggled. Then he lifted the disc and began to hit Starfire in the shoulder again. Raven pulled him from Starfire's arms.

"It is okay, friend Raven," said Starfire. "He did not mean any harm."

Raven held the toddler at an arm's length. He was disgusting. Ketchup clung to his hair, toothpaste was smeared all over her now-ruined cloak, and he held a cracked piece of CD in his hand like a prize. As Raven stepped backwards, she heard one of the cases crunch underfoot and sighed; this kid, so far, had destroyed most of the possessions in the living room.

"Dirty!" Said Tyler.

"That about sums it up," Raven told him.

"Hug!" He said, and tried to lunge forward in Raven's arms. Raven pulled back to avoid his hug, and Tyler screamed.

"Friend Raven, do not be mean to our baby!"

"Starfire, he isn't our baby. I'm sure that we'll figure out what to do with him soon."

"But children are very delightful!" Starfire said. Raven looked her up and down. Starfire's customary outfit was stained beyond all belief, her hair in knots, and her shoulder bleeding very slightly where she'd been hit.

_You'd think there'd been a battle here, _Raven thought to herself grimly, still holding Tyler, who was screaming furiously, at arm's length. She felt herself becoming irritated with Starfire, but bit her lip. She had to admit, in this situation, she needed all the help she could get.

"Sure, delightful," Raven muttered. "Here, Star, take him upstairs and start a bath for him, would you?"

"Of course! Come, little friend, and you shall be clean!" With all of her usual pep and vigor, Starfire picked up the baby and zipped up the stairs. Raven leaned heavily on the wall, sighing. She was worn out.

She caught sight of her own reflection and almost laughed. She was pale, with a stain of some kind of food on her left cheek. Her new cloak was disgusting, and her hair had matted together with something.

She could not tell why she felt like laughing.

The damage around her was less laughable. She counted the causalities silently in her head. One jar in the kitchen, a bowl that would forever reek of mint goop, a couch that 'had once been white' returned to its original color on both one cushion and the right arm, and a CD tower that was broken.

_I have got to figure something out before he breaks everything in the house._

Sitting down, Raven combed her sticky hair with her fingers, quickly pulling it back at the nape of her neck so that she would not have to deal with it. While wiping at her face, she pulled her phone from her pocket and frantically attempted to dial Robin again.

Across town, the phone vibrated, dropped down between the seats of an empty car, which was parked outside the local arcade. Her calls would go unheeded, although she had no way of knowing this.

Four calls and a hysterical-sounding voicemail later, Raven stuck the phone back at her belt and headed upstairs. The unearthly quiet, which she normally would have appreciated, was unnerving today.

Upstairs, she heard the sound of laughter coming from the bathroom she shared with Starfire. "Baby!" She heard Starfire cry.

Part of Raven debated intervening, but she knew the logical thing to do was to go into the bathroom and see what was happening. Before she had a chance, however, the bathroom door burst open, and Tyler came running out, dragging his 'security blanket' behind him.

Otherwise, he was naked.

"Tyler, please come here!" Starfire was chasing him. "You are in need of cleaning!"

The child laughed. "Chase, chase!" On his spry little legs he ran towards Raven, who bent, readily, and caught him.

"Mama!"

"Not your mother," Raven said.

"Thank you for catching him, friend Raven! He escaped from the water and began to run around before I had a chance to clean him!"

For the first time, Raven noticed that Starfire's entire front was wet. She could guess that he had escaped his bath while Starfire had leaned into the tub.

"Ducky?" The child asked.

"Do we have a rubber duck around here he could sit and play with?" Raven asked Starfire. "Just something to keep him in the tub long enough to clean him up?"

"I believe that we do!" Starfire ran off down the hall hunting the plastic toy while Raven stood, holding the kid at her leg while he played with her cloak.

He smiled up at her. "Hi!" He said as though just noticing her for the fourth or fifth time.

"You're just a load of trouble you know," she told him quietly.

The little boy looked sad. "I sorry."

Her heart melted and, rewrapping him in her cloak, which was tattered beyond belief on all edges, she held him. "Its okay."

Just then, Raven heard a squeaking noise behind them. Starfire held up the rubber toy. "Ducky, as you have requested!"

Tyler held out his hands to her, giggling. "Ducky!"

Starfire took the child. "Friend Raven, would you please assist me with the bathing of Tyler?"

Looking at Starfire, who was wet and covered in bleach stains, Raven felt guilty for being angry with her. "Of course," she said.

As they walked down the hall, Raven heard a squishing noise under her feet. Looking down, she realized that the carpet was wet. The trail was coming from the bathroom, as though in a flood.

She moved ahead of the other two and flung the door open, only to have additional water flood out around her ankles.

"Oh no! I have forgotten to turn off the water! Friend Raven, what do we do?"

Raven waded forward, water around her ankles and calves, and managed to turn the tub off, before surveying the damage. The room looked like a swamp, the only outfit Tyler had come in floating past her, the tub splashing water out onto the floor.

One of her towels floated past her, along with Starfire's bottle of shampoo, and she sighed. She realized that Starfire must have tried to use the bottle for bubbles, because now the tub bubbled over dangerously, and disgusting soap clung to the edges of yet another ruined cape.

Tyler had wrestled his way away from Starfire. Carrying his ducky and once again completely naked, he threw himself into the middle of the floor. "Ocean!" He shouted, and began to laugh.

Starfire sat down next to him, squatting in the ruined bathroom. "At least he is happy, friend Raven!" She had not lost her happiness throughout the entire incident.

Raven sank down on the toilet, biting her lip, and wordlessly handed Starfire the soap. "Just clean him," she said, unable to think anymore.

She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream. She wanted to throw things. Instead, she watched an alien and a tiny child play in the middle of the bathroom, Starfire slowly scrubbing Tyler's face and little hands while he laughed.

"Play with me," he said to Raven, smiling, holding out the ducky. "Play Ducky?"

"Not now, Tyler," she said, and walked out of the room. The hallway squelched under her feet and she sighed.

_What are we going to do with this kid?_

"Tyler, do not splash me in the face!" Starfire yelled, amid a fit of giggles.

Outside, the storm came down, although Raven could've sworn for all the world that it had already come inside.

_(A/n: Thank you to those of you who have reviewed my chapters/watched this story so far. Tyler is actually based on one of the boys at a preschool I worked at. I'll try to keep my updates regular if you keep the love coming.)_


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

Raven sighed and collapsed against the wall in the hallway. She could not stand to go any further or think anymore. The child was wearing thin on her nerves, and she wanted to avoid the bathroom as much as possible. She knew children stirred emotions in their caregivers; she just had not expected hers to be emotions of such intense hatred and anger.

She supposed if she was to be fair she didn't hate the child. Rather she hated the situation. Anger at Robin flared up in her again, and in her mind she swore to punch him so hard in the face that he would bleed.

She supposed that wasn't fair either, but it was easier than being mad at the little boy who had spent so much of his time at her legs.

"…No!" She heard Starfire cry. "Friend Raven, please come here right now!"

Raven felt her chest clamp in a tight, uncomfortable way, knowing instantly that yet another thing had gone wrong. She looked across the water-logged bathroom to see a little boy holding up her cell phone, the toilet open.

She had been stupid enough to leave it on the counter in plain reach. "Don't do it!" she yelled at the child.

"No!" He giggled as he dropped it into the toilet. "Boat go bye…"

Raven grabbed him around the waist with one hand and reached for her phone with the other. Thankfully, the phone had only sustained damage to the screen, and so she put it on the counter, finding that she was once again holding the child at arm's length from her.

"You can't do things like that, Tyler!"

"Sorry," he said again with the shy-boy smile that had almost melted her heart the first time. She noticed that he still had ketchup in his hair and that Starfire looked miserable, still messy.

"He does not sit still very well," she told Raven.

Raven felt guilty again for being angry at the other girl. "I'm going to finish cleaning him up. Go use the guy's shower," Raven said, handing Starfire her bottle of conditioner.

"You are most kind, friend Raven, but you do not have to watch the child if you do not like him."

Raven was caught rather off-guard by the remark. She thought she'd been doing well at hiding her dislike for Tyler. "I'll be fine," she said, struggling for a smile.

It was at that moment that her ruined cell phone sparked once, vibrated, and died on the counter.

"I shall bring my phone back with me," Starfire said softly, picking up the water-logged electronic and taking it with her.

Tyler watched them both wide-eyed for a moment. "Clean up?" He asked Raven, smiling from beside her leg.

Raven picked the toddler up and placed him into the bathtub, which had emptied largely onto the tile floor of the room. She could tell the majority of it had soaked in, and the entire bathroom would need redone. She felt a strange satisfaction that Robin would have to deal with all of the bills and explaining the physical damage to the city.

Tyler behaved surprisingly well for Raven. He sat calmly in the tub, splashing softly but not enough to hurt her. For once Raven felt surprisingly at ease with the child.

She gave herself a mental smack. That's like feeling at ease with a tiger that wants to eat you, she reminded herself.

She looked at him in satisfaction. "All clean," she told him with a somewhat gentle smile.

"All clean!" He declared, and threw himself forward in his now slightly-gray bathwater, causing a splash that caught Raven directly in the face and left her sputtering.

She cursed her own calmness.

At that moment Starfire, looking clean and fresh in a new outfit, walked in. She smiled gratefully at Raven. "Thank you so much for allowing me to clean up," she said. "Is Tyler also bathed?"

"All clean!" The baby announced happily, and held out his arms to be picked up. Starfire pulled one of the few non-damp towels in the bathroom from the linen closet- Raven happened to note that, of course, the towel they were using was hers- and lifted Tyler into her arms.

He went surprisingly easily while Raven was still sputtering bathwater out of her face. Sighing, she reached forward and drained the tub.

"We have a problem," said Starfire behind her, and Raven bit back the urge to remind her that the child was their entire problem.

"What?" Raven asked.

"The clothes of the baby were soaked in the water of the bath, and his mother did not send him with another set!" Starfire pointed to Tyler's little jumper.

"Well then," Raven said with a heavy sigh, "We're going to have to go get him new clothes…"

"You have agreed we will still go to the mall of shopping!" Starfire said. "I am so happy! I shall go get my jacket of rain!"

Raven looked down at the naked baby. "Do you exist just to torment me?" She asked him, scooping him up over her shoulder.

"Funny!" He said, pulling a face.

She took him into Robin's room and fumbled through his drawer until she found an oversized nightshirt, which she slipped over Tyler. The baby took two steps, tripped, and started laughing.

"Dressy!" He said, pulling himself up. Raven watched, with some satisfaction and some horror, as he pulled the drawer out. It missed him, hitting the floor, and it overturned.

Suddenly Raven got the urge to walk out of the room and allow Robin to understand what she'd been doing all day. Grinning evilly to herself, she let Tyler, still staggering in his oversized nightshirt, in Robin's room while she went to change.

By the time she came back, Robin's room looked almost as bad as the bathroom. His desk, which had been organized, looked as though a paper snowstorm had rocked it, and his bed was a mess. On the floor lay most of his clothes, and one of his favorite ink pens had exploded all over the carpet.

"Come here baby," Raven said sweetly to Tyler. "You're a good baby, aren't you?" She picked him up and rolled his sleeves, dressed in new clean, dry clothing and once again in her heavy traveling overcoat.

"Yay!" He said, and buried his head in the thick wool of her cloak. In an unusual display of affection, she wrapped the cloak around his little body so that his face poked out just under her chin.

"It is so nice to see you taking to our baby!" Starfire said happily. "Shall we journey to the mall of shopping?"

"Go!" Tyler cried happily, and the friends set out into the rain. Raven tensed; she almost expected to hear the sound of crying again.

Instead, she only heard the rain. "Wet!" Tyler cried happily.

Raven sighed. She'd almost kill for a normal shopping trip with her friend.

**Almost.**

**(**_A/n: I hope you all are enjoying reading this as much as I'm enjoying writing it. :) Thank you for all the reviews and the favorites. I'm about to get crazy busy, but I'll do what I can before my finals start. 3 Keep the love coming- TGR)  
_


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

Raven bowed her head against the rain as the bus finally rumbled to a stop before her and Starfire, who was bent over, making faces at the baby. He had been surprisingly good the entire time she'd held him in her arms; aside from the one and only kick he'd dealt to her breast before she'd sworn loudly enough to frighten him, he had not hurt her at all. She was finding that she did not mind holding him.

He giggled at Starfire. "Funny!" He exclaimed, and Raven felt a ghost of a smile twitch upon her lips. She scooped him closer to her and pulled her hood down more tightly, clambering aboard the bus with Starfire behind her.

As she climbed up the stairs, Tyler poked his head out from Raven's hood. "Hello!" He said to the bus driver. The man's eyes went wide, then narrowed in suspicion. Raven sighed and quickly moved to her seat, dragging Starfire behind her.

Eyes grew wide all around the bus as the other passengers realized not only were they riding the bus with two members of the famous crime-fighting Teen Titans, but one of them was holding a baby in her lap.

One boy was bold enough to ask the question. He walked over to them as Raven was handing Tyler to Starfire and pulling her hood down. "…for a while," Raven was saying.

"You are such a good baby," Starfire told Tyler, who giggled again.

"Is he yours?" Asked the gangly teenage boy, watching Raven fold the corners of her hood back down where the baby had messed them up. She's supposedly the crabbiest one, he thought, so what's she doing with a kid?

Before Raven could answer and prompt damage control, Starfire opened her mouth.

"He is not technically our baby, as friend Raven and I found him this morning, but we have decided to take him and raise him as our own! He is a wonderful boy!" She said, gushing and holding onto Tyler.

"I…See…" The boy eyed them suspiciously.

It was at that moment that Tyler seemed to realize he had changed hands. He was a ridiculous sight, the arms on Robin's sleeping shirt having unfolded over his little hands. "Mama?" He asked, looked up at Starfire.

"I'm not your mom," Raven told him again. The little boy pouted for a moment before turning to play with Starfire's hair. She felt bad as soon as she'd said it.

The teenage boy stayed in the seat across from them, staring at them the whole time. Tyler finally noticed and turned to look him in the eyes. "Staring not nice," he said, causing both girls to laugh. Starfire put him down on the seat next to her while the boy blushed and turned away.

Several minutes passed in unusual silence, save the rumbling of the bus. Finally, the mall rose over the crest of the hill. Raven reached over to the seat next to her to pick up Tyler and discovered he was gone.

"Tyler?" She asked, panic starting to rise in her throat. "Starfire, where's Tyler?"

Both of them looked around nervously, Raven looking under the seat while Starfire looked up and down the aises. Both of them became increasingly nervous.

"Why weren't you watching him?" Raven snapped.

"It is not my job to watch him all of the time. Besides, he seems to like you better!" Starfire snapped.

Before their fight could go any further, both heard a tiny voice yell, "Hi you!"

Somehow, while the girls had not been paying attention, Tyler had crawled under several seats. "Sit by myself!" He proclaimed proudly.

"Don't ever go somewhere again without telling us!" Raven said, snatching the baby up. "Okay?"

"Okay," he said as Raven put him back into the front of her cloak. This kid will be the death of me, she thought, and slowly descended the stairs. Had she been paying attention, she would have realized everyone was staring at her.

And maybe they would have seen the man following them.

_(A/n: Sorry for the short chapter/dangling plot line. I'll get there, I swear. Major writers block; longer update later - TGR)_


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

Raven sighed. She avoided malls, department stores, and any other place where she could be of public interest. Being a superhero meant that people were interested in you, and she could never seem to spare a moment to even grab whatever she had come there for.

Today was worse. People were staring, pointing at one another in earnest, and more than one had a camera. She tried to hide her face from all of the attention, but Tyler did not have the same idea she did. More than once he had knocked her hood back, exposing her to bare-bulb flashes.

"Children do not appear to be good for shopping without being noticed," Starfire said, generally oblivious to all the media attention she and Raven drew on a regular basis. Raven gritted her teeth; she had nothing to say in response. Tyler giggled and waved at a woman holding up her camera, and Raven put one hand over his little arm, using the other to hold her hood down.

"That store sells the clothing of children!" Starfire announced, pointing ahead at the massive Sears Store that occupied a corner of the mall. Without another word, Raven quickened the pace of her steps, wrapping her arm around Tyler as she did so.

She wasn't sure if she wanted to protect him or herself.

Once in, she pulled her hood down and gently removed Tyler from the safe nest she had made with her cloak. He grinned at her, and Raven smiled back, unable to help but giggle at this little boy who had caused such a stir in her arms, dressed in a long t-shirt, standing in the middle of a department store.

"May I help you?" A nearby attendant asked.

"There's no help for us," Raven blurted out, and almost laughed at herself.

"I assume you are looking for clothes for the child?" The attendant pressed. She could see the eager look on his face, and knew that he knew who they were. Starfire had glided over to look at something, ignoring the situation.

"Yes," Raven said. "Could you do me a favor and attempt to keep the crowds at bay while we look for something for him?" Outside, the group of people peering in the windows had grown. Raven sighed; she felt trapped here, but they had to get Tyler what he needed and get him back outside.

"Of course," said the woman, and went over to the door to do crowd control. Raven picked up Tyler, who giggled, and went running over to Starfire.

"We need to find him some clothes!" Raven said in earnest. Suddenly she realized she was treating Tyler more like a mission, like something important, than as a nuance.

"Let us go, then!" Starfire said. If she had any memory or remaining bitterness from their altercation on the bus, it did not show. She walked quickly with a smile on her face, dripping water along the tile floor.

The two made their way into the children's department, where Raven set the kid on the floor and began to look around at the variety of cute clothing for children. "I propose that we put him in this outfit!" said Starfire.

Raven turned to see her holding up a frilly dress with a tiny panda on the front. She almost laughed, then bit her lip. "Let's stick with boy's clothes, okay?"

"Of course," Starfire said, and began to look around.

While the two dug through racks, they paid little to no attention to Tyler. At first, he simply tottered along behind Raven, laughing and looking up at all the different things she and Starfire were discussing. After a while, however, he became quiet.

"I think are finally having enough!" Starfire said to Raven. Raven found that she was holding well over thirty outfits across her arms, where Starfire had heaped them.

"He's not going to stay with us forever," Raven reminded Starfire. "Let's cut this down to three or four."

"But what if he does stay with us forever?" Starfire asked Raven, brushing her hair back. "He likes us. He is like a family member!"

"But Starfire…" Raven trailed off. A difficult emotion had stepped forward in her; she knew she was attached to this little boy. "He's probably not going to be ours to keep."

"I wish that he would be," Starfire said. "This is one of the only times I have seen you enjoy shopping. You have said that things 'are cute', which you will never say."

Raven blushed. "I am happy," she admitted. "But we can't let ourselves get too attached to things we might not always have."

Starfire was silent then, picking up several of the outfits and placing them on the front of the racks closest to them. Together, with little argument and more agreement than they usually had, the two managed to place the outfits that they did not need back. Raven took a step forward carrying the four outfits. "Come on, Tyler," she said, looking down around her ankles.

For the second time that day, panic clutched at her chest. "Where's Tyler?" She forced out.

"I…" Starfire spun in a circle, looking for the baby. "I do not see him."

Both women began to search for the baby. Raven ran up to the front desk and asked the man if anyone had been allowed in the store, and she was told that she and Starfire were not the only people in the store.

"Starfire… Have you found him?"

Just then, they both heard laughing. Bending down, Raven and Starfire discovered Tyler, safe under a clothing rack. "Found a house!" He said, and they could see behind him several varieties of make-up, toys, and other house ware.

"I am glad you are safe!" Starfire told him, sweeping him up in her arms. Both girls noticed that he was a mess again, the make-up he'd swiped from a display all over his face and Robin's night-shirt, but both were too happy to care.

The two women checked out quickly and without incident, Raven cursing herself for panicking and for caring so much. Outside of the store, the crowd was waiting for them, and Raven held Tyler loosely to her side, fighting through, ignoring the reporters who were beginning to ask a variety of questions on everything from the child's origins to her relationship with Starfire, which one reporter had heard had expanded to the pair of them adopting children together.

She cursed her fame in her head.

Suddenly someone tugged on Tyler, who began to scream. Raven felt him yanked from her arms and turned to look in time to see a man running through the crowd quickly, knocking people aside with what appeared to be a greater than average strength.

She was aware she was screaming, and then she was aware Starfire was screaming, and both of them ran in the direction of the man.

The headline that night was that the Titan Baby had been kidnapped, with a picture of Raven, her face twisted in motherly concern, holding Starfire's hand as they ran after Tyler.

_A/n: I think I'm over my writer's block now, even if I'm not sure where this story's going. Please excuse the lack of humor in this chapter; its about to get better._


	7. Chapter 7

_A/n: I didn't feel right just putting up a note without a chapter, so here's what I have done. The result is another cliff-hanger, though. :)  
_**  
Chapter Seven**

Raven and Starfire slumped down on a bench. They had given chase to the man, but hadn't been able to find him. That wasn't for a lack of trying. They'd blasted into gated shops, checked the roof, the basement, the bathrooms, and even the lingerie section of every visible store. Raven had even agreed to step into a Limited Too store, although that almost gave her a heart attack.

Now, outside of the mall, they could conclude that the baby was gone.

"Who would take our child?" Starfire wanted to know. Her eyes were full of tears, and Raven felt so badly that she reached out and hugged the other girl.

"We'll find him," she said, realizing she should protest Starfire's use of the words 'our child' but not having the strength to do so. "He's got to be somewhere."

"But why? Why would anyone want to take our baby?" Starfire asked Raven, looking up at her from the crook of her shoulder.

"I have no idea," Raven said, starting to feel angry. "But we're going to find them."

"What if the baby belongs to him?"

Raven felt a stabbing pain in her chest. "He wouldn't just snatch something that belonged to him," she said, hoping she sounded surer than she felt.

Starfire smiled. "Perhaps you are right," she said. "But where shall we look?"

"We might have to wait for the boys to see what they think," Raven said, "But in the meantime, let's just take to the streets and see what we can find."

Across town, the boys exited the arcade laughing. Beast Boy walked in front of the other two, sulking. He had lost badly at everything except basketball, and that was because Robin had picked him up on his shoulders to use him as a means of beating Cyborg, practically throwing Beast Boy repeatedly through the electronic hoop.

"Oh come off it B," said Cyborg, grinning. "No need to be a sore loser!"

"I am NOT a sore loser!" Beast Boy yelled, hitting his hand off the hood of the T-car.

"Watch the car!" Cyborg barked in response. "You wanna hit something, hit me!"

"So I can break my hand? I'm not that stupid," Beast Boy shot back.

"I dunno about that..." Robin muttered, and Beast Boy glared at him.

"No respect!" He yelled, and the other two laughed at him.

Robin climbed into the passenger's seat while they argued. "Shotgun!" He yelled out the window, causing Beast Boy to howl in annoyance and Cyborg to laugh. Robin smiled; he felt as though the day out had accomplished exactly what he'd meant for it to.

He wondered if Raven and Starfire were having as good of a time. He imagined not. No matter how hard Starfire tried to make friends with Raven, they were total opposites and it usually resulted in a moody silence from Raven for days.

He hoped that wouldn't be the case.

As if on an eerie cue, he heard his phone vibrating. Cyborg and Beast Boy were just climbing in the car, and he turned to Beast Boy. "Do you see my phone under the seat?"

"Why, expecting Starfire to call and tell you how awful her day with Raven was?" Cyborg joked. "I really don't know why you leave them alone together…" He threw the car into gear as Robin bent over to look for his phone, causing him to fall into the backseat of the car.

Both he and Beast Boy howled with laughter.

"Not funny!" Robin yelled, although his voice came out muffled. With his head at ground level, he realized that the phone was between the seats, and sat up as Cyborg gunned the car, causing him to be thrown back against the seat.

With difficulty, he wrestled the phone out from its narrow ledge and held it up to his face. Flipping it open, he saw three missed calls; oddly, all were from Raven. He also had a text, and so he flipped to that for an explanation.

**I am going to kick your ass. – Raven**

"What'd you do to her?" Beast Boy asked, reading over Robin's shoulder.

Robin ignored him, putting the phone up to his ear and calling Raven's phone.

'The number you have reached is no longer in service' said a voice. Robin's eyes grew wide. "What's Raven's number?" He asked Beast Boy.

Beast Boy attempted to call her, but the same automated voice played in his ear. "I have no idea what's wrong…"

"She tried to call me a bunch of times."

He was in the process of dialing Starfire's phone, but only her voicemail picked up. 'Hello, you have reached the phone of Starfire! I am sorry I am not in my phone, but people are never actually in their phones, so if you would pretty please leave me a message…"

Robin hung up in annoyance.

As he did so, Cyborg slammed on the brakes. The entire street leading up to the Tower appeared to be blocked by people. "Yo, what're you DOING?" He screamed, and dismounted.

He could see people standing there, newspapers thick in their hands. As they stepped out of the car, all eyes were thick on the boys. Suddenly a swarm of reporters ran forward, all branishing microphones and fighting to talk over one another.

"…feel about the adoptions?"

"….realize you were being betrayed?"

"…support the homosexual lifestyle of your ex-girlfriend?"

"…meet the child in question?"

"…have an enemy that would want to take Tyler?"

"Wait a minute… Slow down!" Robin yelled as he was poked in the back of the head with a microphone. "What're you talking about? What's going on here?"

One reporter reached out. "So you didn't realize! How tragic!" In her hands was a full-color photograph of two young women, who Robin instantly recogonized as Raven and Starfire. His eyes grow wide and he could barely breathe; Raven was carrying a small baby in her arms, and Starfire was smiling at them both.

Under it was a picture of the two holding hands.

'Titan Women Out and Proud: Couple speaks on Child Adoption"

Robin nearly fainted, Cyborg supporting him, Beast Boy looking at the paper in a dumbfounded way.

Just then, Robin's phone rang.


	8. Chapter 8

_A/n: Thank you to all of you who weighed in on my little dilemma. I'm sorry this next chapter's been a while in the making; my laptop had a fatal encounter with my dog one day… But that's a story for another time. By the way, I did bump my rating up, just to be safe. Robin develops a little bit of a potty mouth in this one and the overal media circus kind of changes the rating. I wasn't sure where this story was headed when I started it- I'm still not sure._

_To the reviewer who said I was making them seem gay: That's the intentional humor behind the situation. _

_With all due respect and no further ado, chapter eight._

_Additional note: Had to do a re-upload... It ate one of my paragraphs. Apparently it didn't like how angry Robin ran his words together. FIXED._

**Chapter Eight: A Misunderstanding**

Robin forced himself to stand up, grabbing his phone from his belt as he turned on his heel. The mob of press stood between him and the car, and so he did the only logical thing; grabbed the nearest microphone and swung it so that it caught the nearest reporter under his knees and sent him sprawling to the ground.

"Let's get out of here!" He yelled to the other two. Beast Boy, as though on instinct, grabbed a fallen newspaper, and the three boys ran back to the car as people began to turn and give chase, Robin wildly swinging the microphone in an arch over his head.

The scene was one of the ridiculous pandemonium that only seems to follow the circus known as the media.

Cyborg forced the doors open as they ran to it. One particularly daring reporter took a dive for Robin's leg and received a kick to the face. With the three of them inside the car, Cyborg honked once, a loud warning, and threw the car into reverse.

Reporters and fans alike dived out of the way as the half-metal man skillfully steered them back down the road towards the city, leaving the crazed reporters in the dust.

That was when Robin, who had thrown himself into the back beside Beast Boy, allowed himself to read the article.

"…Starfire and Raven have taken a step in coming out of the closet, apparently adopting a child together. The two were last spotted in public this afternoon when their baby, Tyler, was snatched. The two ran off, leaving the press with the image seen below of the girls gripping each other's hands as a means of love and support…" Robin read aloud. Suddenly he threw the paper, which hit the windshield with a sickening smack.

"What a bunch of bullshit!" He said furiously. He punched the seat.

"This has to be a mistake, Robin," said Beast Boy. "It's the newspapers. They always get things wrong. Remember the time they reported that Cyborg was actually an alien? Or that I had an IQ lower than a rock?"

"Well you do," Cyborg pointed out, driving forward in a hurry. His eyes were focused on the road as the rain came down harder, speeding through the city towards the mall where the child had supposedly been taken.

"Shut up!" Beast Boy said.

"There's no way. They hate each other! HATE each other!" Robin yelled.

"That's not being fair," Cyborg said. "They do like each other, in that off-kilter sort of way. They just can't spend time together. They're like… Like some kind of weird sisters or something."

"But what if we just didn't understand it?" Beast Boy asked, biting his lip.

"There is NO way!" Robin yelled. "None none none! Got that?" He got closer to Beast Boy, who could see that the leader's eyes were slightly red-rimmed.

"Okay, okay!" Beast Boy whimpered, pulling back.

"Robin, taking this out on Beast Boy isn't going to help. We've got to find the girls and figure out what happened."

Robin stared at the picture for a long time of the two of them holding hands. Raven's shoulders were tense, and Starfire appeared to be panicking, but it was hard to tell what the context was, what was going on in that mall. His mind had begun to race in a direction he could not quite shake.

He found that he was worried.

"…ringing?" Cyborg asked, looking back at Robin, who was visibly shaking, in his mirror.

"What?" Robin snapped,

"Back there. When we ran away. Wasn't your phone ringing? What if its them? What if they need something?"

"What if I don't care?" Robin asked.

"You do care," Beast Boy pointed out, and Robin sighed, knowing this was true.

"It's from Starfire," he reported to the other two as he checked his phone. "One of you please call her."

Beast Boy leaned over and took the phone. The conversation was a quick one, full mostly of sounds of agreement. "We'll be right over. Second Avenue, Cyborg."

"Got it," Cyborg said. He saw Beast Boy hang up the phone. "Now keep your cool when we get there, got it, Robin?"

"It's not your girlfriend that's running around acting like a lesbian," muttered Robin.

The three boys rode in silence to the edge of the street, where they saw a figure dressed entirely in black and a girl with long red hair in a ridiculous rain coat. Knowing it could be no one else, they stopped.

Robin practically threw himself out of the car, waving the newspaper, and instantly rounded on Raven.

"What the hell did you think you were doing? Raven do you realize the implications of this? Why would you two ever hold hands in public? You've turned this into one hell of a media circus! Honestly! Running around like a pair of..." Here he choked on his words and waved the paper at them. "You've damaged all the hard work I had to do to keep our names clear!"

"Robin, please, we can explain…." Starfire tried to set her arm on his shoulder, but he shrugged it off, rounding on Raven.

"Where the hell did the kid come from? What the hell were you doing? YOU OUGHT TO KNOW BETTER! Raven this is all YOUR fault!"

Raven stood up as straight as she could mange, looked Robin right in the eyes, and suddenly appeared more frightening than she ever had. "Are you even listening to yourself? You know how stupid the press can be. We were protecting the child. We were doing a SERVICE to the Titan name and if you EVER think you can blame me for this then I will walk away right now. Do you even realize what you did? You left me to babysit by myself, didn't answer your phone. What were you doing that was so important, huh? What gave you the right to even let this happen? It's your fault for not answering. It's your fault for leaving me with an alien and a baby!" By this point, she was yelling, and her voice echoed off the nearby buildings.

Robin actually shrank back. "Well… We were…"

"At the arcade…" Beast Boy finished.

Raven walked forward and slapped Robin across the face, the sound resonating off the buildings around them and causing the still-silent Beast Boy and Cyborg to wince. "The arcade. I get labeled as a lesbian, have a kid trash my home, find out I actually care about the kid, and have to put up with **your** girlfriend crying because we can't find him, and you're at an arcade?" Her voice had retreated to little more than a whisper.

Robin raised a hand to his cheek, which stung. He hadn't realized Raven could hit, let alone hard. "Hey don't get mad at…"

"I'm not done," she hissed, silencing him. "You are going to help me find him and stop Starfire from crying. You are going to help with this media circus. Or I will personally rip you apart. Got it?" Her eyes glowed black momentarily with fury.

"Friend Raven… That is the sweetest thing you have ever done for me!" Starfire said as Robin nodded, in shock, and hugged her, her arms practically crushing Raven's waist. Unsure of what to do, Raven patted her shoulders and hugged her back, her eyes returning to normal with the shock of the moment.

The member of the media circus that had managed to hold onto the undercarriage of the car took a picture and skittered off into the night.

Raven sputtered wordlessly and Robin sighed. "Bunch of bastards..." He said, his hand clenching.

"Now may we find friend Raven and I's baby?" Starfire wanted to know, still smiling and holding onto Raven's shoulder in her happy, clueless way.

"Yes… Let's go find him…" Robin muttered, his arms crossed, in shock that Raven had dared to speak up, and feeling like an idiot for ever thinking something was going on between the girls in the first place. Starfire smiled and gave him a hug, and he patted her shoulder as well. She kissed him on the cheek where Raven had slapped him and he smiled slightly.

"Misunderstandings happen," Beast Boy said to Robin, as he and Cyborg finally managed to close their mouths and Cyborg managed to stop silently laughing.

The girls climbed into the back of the car and the five sped off, deciding that to get into their house and do any kind of work, they would have to confront the media circus.

* * *

Across town, a man stood with the baby in his arms. Tyler was quiet, contemplating him. "I missed you," the man said finally, hugging her. "Where does your mother find such strange babysitters anyway?"

"Dada," Tyler said with a smile. "Missed you."

"I missed you too," he whispered. "I have a feeling they'll be back though... And we have to be prepared."

In his free hand he held a copy of the newspaper.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine: Preparation**

Raven sat with her legs crossed in the back seat of the car, gazing moodily out the window. Ahead of her, Robin did the exact same thing. Beast Boy looked at Raven out of the corner of his eye, trying to get a read on what she might be thinking.

She turned and glared at him, and he shrank back. Starfire seemed detached, a kind of ghost hovering between the other team members. Raven kept turning to smile at her reaasuringly, but the atmosphere could not have been more tense.

A smacking sound filled the cab. Cyborg swerved and everyone bounced against one another, their eyes floating towards the source of the sound. On the roof was a media reporter, who Cyborg had apparently struck when she jumped onto the hood of their car.

Everyone sighed audibly.

"I'm going to handle this," said Robin. "Stop the car, Cyborg."

All at once the questions began again, a clambering of fans and reporters rushing towards the boy, who slammed the door shut and held up his hands, moving his mouth with words that seemed oddly like 'One at a time!'

"Do you believe friend Robin will protect us?" Starfire asked.

A reporter was up in Robin's face yelling something, and Robin was yelling back. "I am NOT GETTING DEFENSIVE!" Everyone heard through the car's windows.

"No," Raven said, "No he won't." Without another word, she swung herself towards the car door. Cyborg wondered whether or not he should stop her but when she looked at him, her eyes focusing in the mirror, he unlocked the door to let her go free.

"It would seem you are in denial over the state of affairs here. Will this be the end of the Teen Titans?" The reporter was asking. Everyone was so concentrated on Robin, they did not notice the tiny gothic girl making her way slowly through the crowd, hood up, eyes trained on the reporter talking to Robin.

"They were watching that kid for someone! This has gotten way, way out of hand!" Robin yelled. "You'll have to retract all of your reports and…"

"While your attempts to cover up are noble…"

"Robin, if you would please give us what you've just said in a statement…"

"Can you let us get that in a direct quote…?"

"Are you perhaps the father of the child?"

Unable to stand the stupidity anymore, Raven stood up, closed her eyes, and felt the power coursing to her hands. _Don't lose control, just take care of the problem._

Without warning she felt her grip slipping and she knocked the woman's microphone out of her hand at a distance, standing tall with her legs firmly planted.

"You want a quote?" Raven asked, feeling oddly defensive of Starfire and Tyler for the second time that day. "Quote that, bitch." Her eyes glowed darkly and Robin let out an audible groan of frustration; this could make everything worse.

He was surprised when, instead of the situation worsening, the reporter he'd been attempting to handle backed up a few feet. "With all due respect, Ms. Roth, would you… Would you mind if we asked a few questions?"

"Questions," Raven snarled, "Are what you should have asked in the first place, rather than defaming my character and the name of my team. What you should've known was that we were protecting the child, and that he needed clothes because he had Pudding of Sadness all over his little shirt! Had it not been for the media madness, none of this might have happened!"

The reporter smiled timidly, trying her best to calm Raven down. "We can reverse the story easily, Ms…"

"That's not the point! The point," Raven snapped, "Is that you've caused us a lot of grief."

Everyone was silent for a moment.

"So you and Starfire aren't…"

"NO!" Raven yelled, her eyes flashing again dangerously. "That's the same as asking a pair of teenage girls who are watching a little brother if they're lesbians. Now if you don't mind, we really have to…"

The reporter persisted. "So the child was not yours? Could we perhaps get to Starfire, because I clearly heard her say…"

Raven took a step forward. "So you're the prick from the bus that started all of this. No, I am not in love with Starfire. No, it is not our baby. No, I do not have time for any more of your stupid questions." She stood inches from his face. "Now if you don't mind, I have a child to find." Raven turned on her heel and started to storm back to the car.

"Thanks for your time," Robin said in a timid voice, and ran off after her. He felt like an idiot, assuming that he would be the one to do damage control. Raven climbed stiffly into the car and he chased her.

"Way to scare everyone!" Beast Boy yelled at Raven, a goofy grin on his face. "That was so awesome!"

"Friend Raven… Thank you for clearing our name."

Raven reached for the floor, ripping the offending news paper article in half. "I have to wonder what kind of tripe they'll spread now."

"I wouldn't worry about it," Robin said. "Raven, I owe you an…"

"Apology accepted," she said shortly. "You're going to want to retract it in about ten minutes anyway."

"What do you mean by that?" He asked her.

"Hit the gas, Cy," she said, and Cyborg did as he was told, the crowd parting to allow them back to their island home. From the outside, it looked peaceful.

Raven knew that inside, it was not.

Everyone clambored out of their car and made their way up the garage steps. "So, what's our plan of attack?" Raven asked Robin, trying to occupy his mind.

"We're going to have to get a hold of some of the video footage, for one," he said, carefully closing the door. Raven heard the silence as the other three reached the top of the stairs and tried to stall him.

"How will we be able to use it?" She asked, her voice holding a slight edge, remembering the destruction she'd allowed Tyler to cause to Robin's room. Under other circumstances, she might have laughed, but seeing as Robin was in a terrible mood- mostly because of the lost child and the tabloids- she knew he was going to lose his cool.

Part of her wanted to laugh anyway.

"It'll be easier to show you once we get upstairs. Come on," he said, and gently pushed her shoulder and Raven sighed, knowing she had no choice.

She stopped again in the top doorway. "Are you sure this is going to work? Robin, if we don't find him, Starfire will be so devastated," she said, forcing her voice not to shake.

"We'll find him, Raven, but first you…"

His voice died away in his throat as Robin looked over Raven's shoulder. She realized exactly how terrible the room looked; the Gamestation was smashed in one corner, CDs were fragmented all over the floor, parts of the couch were bleached white, one of Cyborg's wrenches had been unexplainably thrown through the TV, and in the center of it all was a place where a combination of Sadness Pudding and bleach had chemically reacted, melting the stuff to the floor.

Her heart practically broke when she realized Tyler's clothes were somewhere among the mess. She felt herself becoming more emotional than she'd intended and she leaned back to catch the doorframe and remind herself that she could not go to pieces. This gave Robin the edge he needed to walk into the room, grab his hair with his hands, and stand in open-mouthed shock.

Just then, a drop of water came through the floor and hit him in the head.

"What the hell happened?" Cyborg managed finally.

"Perhaps," Starfire said, "I should have allowed friend Raven to sit upon the baby rather than letting him run around our home."

Robin sputtered once, then fainted dead away on the floor, landing in the mess of pudding and bleach. Starfire ran to his side, and suddenly Beast Boy started to laugh.

"This has got to be a joke, right?"

Raven fixed him with a look that could kill, and he promptly stopped laughing. Cyborg, shaking his head, walked forward and picked up the ruins of the Game Station.

Beast Boy started to cry. "I'll never love again!" He screamed, and picked up one of the controllers, cradling it.

Raven sighed. Tyler flashed into her mind then, and she started to worry about where he was, what he was doing.

She mentally slapped herself, knowing that the attachment she feared had already come true.

Just then, Robin sat up. "Are we sure we even want to find this kid?"

"We have to," said Raven and Starfire together.

"Let me get what I need from my room…" All words, and anger, seemed beyond Robin as he stood up and walked up the steps, his boots squishing every step of the way.

Raven braced herself, and was right to do so, because his voice floated down, a mix of terror and anger.

"WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO MY ROOM? RAVEN, WHAT DID YOU HAVE TO DO WITH THIS?"

Beast Boy and Cyborg promptly headed outside to bury their GameStation, leaving Raven inside with Starfire, who was looking upset, and Robin, who wanted to kill her.

She started to laugh again,

_a/n: Sorry this update is short. I'm working out the final couple of chapters. __ Reviews are loved forever… Since I only got one last time. _


	10. Chapter 10

_I would just like to say THANK YOU for all the reviews and encouragement. Sorry this chapter is: A. Short, B. Poorly written, and C. A long time in coming. I'm working on an original work (finally) that's taking up a ton of my time. Please keep the reviews and the love coming. You guys are great. –Goddess_

**Chapter Ten**

Robin came thundering down the stairs to find Raven still standing at the foot of them, laughing her head off. She gripped the rail and laughed in a kind of hysterical panic, doing her best to contain her emotions, but trying to let off some kind of steam before she exploded.

Robin, on the other hand, was already exploding. "What happened to my room? What the hell were you guys doing up there? Everything I own is on the floor, the hallway is flooded, your bathroom is going to need completely redone, and SOMEBODY DREW ON THE MAP OF SLADE'S LAIR!" This last piece of news, although the least consequential, seemed to have Robin the most distressed.

He desperately waved a piece of paper in Raven's face, and Raven leaned forward just enough to see that someone had not only scribbled on Robin's map, but also drawn what appeared to be stick people in the one corner. She realized, with a little tug on her heart, that the three stick people were herself, Starfire, and Tyler, as per the eyes of the two year old.

Her stick figure scowled, while Starfire's and Tyler's smiled. The picture had obviously been drawn when Raven had left him to trash Robin's room- which she still did not regret- because she knew she'd never seen it before.

It melted her heart.

"Robin," Raven said quickly, cutting him off in the middle of a stream of swearing, "Let's just find the kid."

"You really think I'm going to let this go? You damaged our home! We're going to need a grant of thousands of dollars! No villain has ever done this much damage! Ever!"

Raven stood up, feeling herself becoming angry again. "Maybe this will teach you to pick up your phone, Robin. Maybe this will teach you not to go play video games and leave me here by myself with your girlfriend and a baby. Hell, maybe you deserved to have your room trashed once in a while to remind you that nobody died and made you the ruler of the tower!" Raven was not yelling; instead her words came out in a low hiss.

Robin shrank back; Raven was unusually emotional and scarier than ever today. While he wanted to confront her about a number of other things- such as why a rubber duck had been swimming in his underwear drawer and why a bowl of Sadness Pudding had been dumped onto his sheets- he knew that she was only likely to become more desperate if they did not find the baby.

I hate this damn kid, he thought to himself.

"I'll… I'll go get my stuff."

The next hour at Titan's tower followed the first semblance of normality that Raven could remember since that morning. Robin sat down in front of the computer and began to work furiously, calling Raven and Starfire over occasionally to ask them questions as he streamed video after video from various store cameras. Cyborg and Beast Boy had come back in carrying shovels and covered in dirt, only to have Robin snap at them for tracking dirt on the floor.

"Dude," Cyborg said, "Chill. At the rate we're going, mud is the least of your worries."

"Gamestation…" Said Beast Boy in a mournful tone, and both of them sat down quietly on the couch. Raven, even in her distressed frame of mind, appreciated how quiet it was without the loud noise from the video games, and made a vow that she would destroy the next one they received.

"I have a possible suspect," Robin said suddenly. This caused Starfire, who had been sitting dejectedly in the window seat for almost two hours, to stand up and come running over to the computer. Raven also leaned intently over the back of his chair to figure out what he'd found. He seemed to have calmed down while working.

Well, Raven thought to herself, he is kind of a crazed workaholic that way…

He had pulled up side-by-side windows from each of the stores the girls had visited. "You see these?" He asked quietly. "There's a man in every single one of them who I think was following you around."

The images, although grainy and rather small, depicted was what undoubtedly the same man. Raven looked at him and found that something about him was unnerving; she swore she'd seen him somewhere before. He was a tall man with dark eyes and unnaturally wavy hair.

"He looks much like our baby," Starfire said finally.

"I think," Robin said slowly, "He might be the kid's dad. I'm going to run him through my system and see what happens."

Raven continued to stare at the grainy images while Robin did his checks on the computer. The man now looked so much like the toddler she'd played with that it was unnerving.

"Do you suppose," Starfire said softly, "That this is what we were to protect the baby from?"

"What do you mean?" Robin asked, reaching out instinctively to take her hand. He felt guilty for having neglected her in order to yell at Raven; not only had Raven made a fool out of him, but he had not taken care of his girlfriend by any means.

"The note that was with the baby," Raven said in a deadpan tone, her eyes deep with thought and her brow creased in an unusually emotional arrangement of her face, "Said he needed protecting from something. What if he isn't supposed to be with his dad?"

"Why didn't you guys tell me about this?" Robin asked. "We really have to find the kid now. You never know what's wrong with the guy!"

"You don't think we know that?" Raven snapped.

Starfire let out a pitiful little wail and Raven rubbed her shoulder, glaring at Robin with a look that plainly said 'Now see what you did?'

Robin sighed, but thankfully was saved when his computer let out a low beep and brought up a search record and address. One quick scan told him that Tyler's father was wanted for, among other things, three counts of driving on a suspended license and a child support bill.

"I've got his address," he said finally, to shut Starfire up.

He had never seen Raven run so quickly to the car, Starfire in tow. He, Beast Boy, and Cyborg all looked at each other and shrugged.

"This," Beast Boy said finally, "Was so totally not worth the arcade."

The others nodded in agreement and followed the girls out to the car.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter Eleven**

The Titans stood in front of what was undeniably an ancient, unsafe apartment building. The place appeared to no longer be in use, the front porch sagging down to meet the street and the shutters pealing away from their respective windows.

"Dude," Beast Boy said, "It looks like a house in a horror movie. Or the kind of place Raven might live!"

Raven, who had just exited the car, slapped him sharply in the back of the head. "I would never live in a place that was falling to the ground."

"Ouch!" Beast Boy cried. "I didn't mean you wouldn't take care of the house! I was just talking about the creepy factor, you know? 'Cause the house is creepy, and you're kind of creepy, and…"

The second smack seemed louder and Beast Boy, now aware he was verbally digging himself into a hole, shut his mouth and clamped his hand to the now-forming goose egg on his skull, deciding against continuing whatever he had been about to say. Raven smirked, having accomplished her sole goal in life- shutting Beast Boy up-, and turned back to the house.

Despite the warm night, she shuddered, thinking about Tyler. Is he really here? She wondered. If so, why would anyone want to keep a baby in such an awful place?

The same thought had apparently occurred to Starfire. "Are we sure that the father of Tyler lives in this very scary place?" She asked Robin, clinging to his arm for support. Raven smiled; at least the happy couple no longer appeared to be fighting. Her smile was short-lived, however, as she remembered what they had come to do.

"Pretty sure," Robin replied, squeezing her hand in support.

"How are we going to go about getting him out?" Cyborg asked. "Explosives? Missels? Should I ram the car into the side? Maybe we could go for a full-scale attack!" His eyes seemed to be growing bigger as he talked, fantasizing some kind of raid on the building.

"Just like in World of Warcraft!" Yelled Beast Boy, who seemed to share Cyborg's raiding fantasy. "Maybe we'll even collect gold at the end…"

Robin clapped his hands sharply, drawing the two back into reality. "There's no time for that. Besides, any of those plans are going to bring the house down. We either need to sneak in or…"

"Or we could just knock on the front door," Beast Boy suggested, snapping out of his fantasies. Both girls nodded eagerly, smiling. Raven touched his shoulder lightly, as if apologizing for smacking him in the head.

"Everybody wants to do things the easy way," Robin muttered in disappointment, following his team up the crumbling sidewalk to the crumbling building.

Raven looked down at the paper Robin had handed her, trying to figure out the apartment number. "It should be the first door on the right on the second floor," she said quietly. "Everyone move quietly, and lets try to act as non-descript as possible…"

Her words were cut off by the sound of chattering teeth. Behind her, Beast Boy stood staring up at the apartment in horror. "I can't do this," he said. "Dude, this is too creepy. Its worse than being in Raven's head. And that's like, really bad!"

She smacked him again. "Are you a super hero or a mouse?" She demanded.

"A superhero who can turn into a mouse!" Shouted Cyborg, and started laughing. His voice rang off the alley walls and the nearby buildings of the deserted street.

"I assumed we were to be 'quiet', yes?" Starfire said with a sharp edge to her voice, glaring at the three of them. Raven sighed; she felt ashamed for having contributed to the chaos. "I would very much like to see our baby again."

"Let's go," Robin said, and Raven pushed up to join them, leaving Beast Boy silently fuming at Cyborg behind them.

Robin reached the door and threw it open, looking left and right in the empty, narrow corridor. The place was dirty and the lobby, if it could be called that, contained no furniture. The sign on the desk read 'Back in Five', but was covered over in cobwebs.

"I am most worried for our baby!" Starfire whispered. Robin rubbed her arm gently and Raven felt the same dread Starfire had expressed rising up at the thought of Tyler being in such a terrible place.

"We'll find him," Robin whispered, and crept forward, his hands raised. The others followed suit, edging towards the narrow staircase that was lit only by the red glow of the 'emergency exit' signs on each landing. Their progress was slow, and the sound of Beast Boy's chattering teeth- and the occasional loud boo from Cyborg to cause him to jump- were the only sounds that followed them.

"I don't understand why nobody has stopped us," mussed Robin to himself. Raven had to agree. They were dressed in their super-hero garb, and in the dead of night were making enough noise to wake the dead.

"Maybe there's nobody here," Cyborg suggested. "It's not exactly homey."

Robin glared at him. For once, it worked and they were silent until they reached the door clearly labeled '2'.

"Well, here we are," Raven said. "Push the door open already."

Robin reached to his belt to ready his bo-staff. "I don't' want to go rushing into what could easily be a trap."

Suddenly, Starfire grabbed his arm with a crazed look in her eyes. "Robin, I would like my baby NOW!" Her nails dug into his arm and he flinched, pushing the door with his shoulder.

"It's locked."

"Who," Raven asked, "Locks an entire floor of an apartment building?"

"Someone who doesn't want to have visitors," Cyborg said, having pushed his way up from behind. His sonic cannon stood ready on his arm. "Stand back, everyone." The other Titans scattered and the door blasted to bits.

"Very subtle," Raven noted sarcastically, wiping a bit of plaster from her hair. "Next time, just take the other three walls out with it." She stepped through the opening, leaving the other three to run after her.

There, as if by fate, was the other door. The door appeared normal and non-threatening, but all of the heroes stood as though on guard. Each looked at the other, and suddenly knocking on the door did not seem like the best idea.

Starfire sighed loudly and dramatically, tired of everyone's indecision. "I will do it!" She shouted, and threw herself at the door with force. In a flash of green bolts and red hair, the oaken door fell in on the floor.

"…Barney is a dinosaur from our imagination…" Suddenly Tyler's father stopped singing, holding his son aloft, who was laughing.

"I demand that you give me back that baby!" Starfire shouted before anyone else could recover from the sight of a full-grown man, supposedly a criminal with visitation to his child suspended, prancing around singing the Barney theme to his young son.

"You're that babysitter!" He yelled. "Look, you go back and tell my girlfriend…"

"Your girlfriend?" Robin asked stupidly. "Babysitter? Did you guys actually offer to babysit this kid?" He felt as though he could punch something again, thinking of the rubber ducky still swimming with his underwear and his important files all over the room.

"No," Raven snapped at him. "She just kind of dropped him off, asking us to protect him. Although after seeing that little dance, I'm not sure what we're protecting him from."

"You've never had kids!" The man screamed, taking offense to Raven's comment. "You don't realize how hard it is to entertain them!"

Before anyone could speak, little Tyler turned in his father's arms to look at Raven. Raven looked back at him, her heart full of a kind of painful emotion she could not quite explain. All at once, she was flooded; safe that he was here, angry with his father for taking him, upset that he did not appear to notice her, and ready to snatch him back.

"Mama!" Cried the little boy.

"Give him to me right now," Raven said, stepping forward to stand beside Starfire, "And nothing will happen except he'll go safely back to his mom."

"What are you going to do if I don't?" He sneered. "I'm not giving him up. I refuse to let you take my baby from me."

"Just give him to me," Raven hissed, feeling the anger building up inside herself.

"No!" The man said, and tried to run. Quick as a bolt of lightning, Starfire flew to his other side and grabbed onto Tyler's hands. The man elbowed her in the stomach, causing her to fall backward, and Raven saw her chance. The emotion she was feeling allowed her to release her powers with more control than usual. A large black hand shot towards the man and he fell down as though pushed. The same hand then caught Tyler.

The baby started to laugh, and it was the most beautiful sound in the world. Raven pulled him towards her, and he held out his little arms.

"Mama!" He cried again.

"Tyler!" She said back, and Starfire came running over to hug them both.

All three boys closed their mouths, having been standing there dumbfounded. "In the name of Jump City, you're under arrest for kidnapping!" Robin yelled, although he was missing much of his usual passion from it.

"We didn't even get to play," Beast Boy complained to Cyborg as they watched Robin cuff him and the girls cuddling the baby.

"What can we say? Never get between a woman and her baby," Cyborg said softly, smiling at the sight of the girls and Tyler, who was now clinging to Starfire's hair with one fat fist around Raven's neck.

"We've got to get him back to his mom," Raven whispered to Starfire, and the other girl nodded.

"I have a feeling she will be back looking for him," Starfire whispered back.

"Robin, we've got to get Tyler home and give him a bath," Raven said. "We'll take him back if you take the dad down to jail."

"Let me go!" Cried Tyler's father. "You can't do this to me! I was separated from my father! I grew up with daddy issues! This is not dadbatable! You can't take me any father!"

"You, dude," Beast Boy said, "Have seen Austin Powers too many times."

"Go ahead," Robin said. "Actually, hold on one second." He walked across the room to where Raven stood with Tyler, and bent slightly to look him in the eyes.

"I hate you," he said to the baby.

Tyler kicked him squarely between the eyes and no one, even the boy's father, could breathe for the next five minutes.

"Son of a bitch! I hate kids!"

"I used to think that too," whispered Raven, brushing Tyler's hair away from his eyes. "I love you though, Tyler."

Only Starfire heard, and she smiled before the two walked out with him, Cyborg trailing behind them, leaving Beast Boy and Robin to haul his father off to jail.

_To Everyone,  
Thank you so much for waiting so long, and for all the lovely reviews. (Hint, hint.) On a side note, i think I may have dreamed Tyler into life. There's a little boy that looks a lot like him running around the summer camp I'm co-directing... Anyway, review please, last chapter upcoming. I have another idea for a second humor piece running along these same lines, but more on that later. :)  
-Goddess-_


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter Twelve**

Starfire and I were happily playing with the baby while the three boys worked at cleaning up the house when there was a faint knock. I was unsure I had heard it; only when Starfire looked at me did I acknowledge the noise. I continued to sit with Tyler in my lap; The little boy had his eyes closed and his head on my leg. The rain drummed a steady beat as Starfire stood up and opened the door.

It was a classic case of mistaken identity. In walked a woman roughly my height and weight, wearing an oversized raincoat. Her rain-soaked hair was purple at the tips, a shade like my own, and she was extremely pale.

Little Tyler's eyes opened a little wider at the sight of this woman, who was not speaking, looking around in worry at the damage her son had caused. (Robin, being the logical man he is, had chosen to start with the damage to the bathroom and his own room). "Mama!"

The woman smiled and held out her arms, and I felt Tyler being lifted away from my leg. I felt a momentary sadness, but I managed to smile.

"Why did you choose to leave Tyler with us?" Starfire asked the woman suddenly, which seemed to me like a very good question to be asking.

"I needed him to be safe," said the woman, brushing his hair back. "I'm sorry to have imposed on you the way I did, but I needed somewhere safe for him to go, and I just thought that…"

"We aren't professional babysitters," I reminded the woman, but gently, smiling at the baby she held in her arms. "We had a hell of a time with him."

"I'm sorry for the damage to your living room…" She said, her eyes growing wider as she noted each little ding and dent in the wall. "And about him. I just panicked. His father…"

"We met him," I said gently.

"You did?" Her eyes grew wide in terror. "Where is he? Was everything okay? I never thought he would…"

Starfire placed her hand on the woman's shoulder. "He will not be bothering you anymore, I can assure you."

"Oh thank you," she said, holding the baby closer to her, and I smiled. I knew what that relief felt like, having recovered Tyler only two hours before.

There was a moment of silence, an awkward beat. "Well," she said softly, looking at Tyler, "I had better get going. Thank you so much for all of your trouble."

"We were most happy to have him," Starfire said with a sad smile, and I knew she did not want the baby to leave anymore than I had.

Suddenly, Tyler turned in his mother's arms and began to squirm. "No want leave!" He cried, reaching over his shoulder for me. My heart melted and I stepped forward instinctively. The least understandable thing in the world should be why I got attached to the kid. I think the thing of it is children are innocent. You can trust them. They won't hurt you- They haven't figured out how to hurt yet.

"We'll come back another day," she told Tyler, who was latching onto my hand. I smiled at him. "Would you like that?" His mother asked.

"Yes! Come back and play!" He grinned ear to ear and shook one of my fingers. I let him, disjoint, realizing that we would see the child again. In a way, it melted my heart.

Starfire was less subtle, grabbing me and the baby and his mother in a bone-crushing hug. "We shall have ever so much fun! We shall eat enjoyable food and play wonderful games and be happy!" She released us and we all staggered slightly on the spot.

"Bye-bye!" Tyler said finally. I watched him leave, a smile slight on my lips. The peace that had started the day fell over the house. I could hear Robin swearing overhead, the ceiling cracking as they stepped on wet spots.

I settled back down with my book contentedly when Starfire came over and sat by my side. "We have done a good job then, friend Raven? We will be allowed to see the baby again?"

"Yes," I replied, smiling at her for the first time in days. "And Starfire… I'm glad we spent time together today."

"I am most glad too!" Starfire hugged me, another bone-crushing hug, and I let her, feeling relaxed in a way I normally would not have. "Next time, though," she whispered to me, looking around, "I will let you sit upon the baby."

I actually laughed at her continued misconception. I never got to correct her though, as Robin's voice thundered down from above:

"Is he gone yet?"

I smirked to myself slightly. "Starfire and I have agreed to watch him for a few hours next week."

I wish, for all the world, I could've seen his face.

Peace, or whatever peace is for the five of us, reigned back over the tower, and I dipped my head into my book.

Outside, the rain finally stopped.

**END**

_Thank you for your reviews, love, and support. : ) Please look for a new piece soon. Reviews always welcome._


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